In small-town India with smart money: The bet a tech whiz won

Months before demonetisation forced people across the country to live without cash, a finance technology professional hailing from Kumaon voluntarily decided not to use cash in his daily transactions and has been steadfastly sticking to his resolve. Abhishant Pant, who works in a Mumbai-based company, first went cashless in March this year in Singapore. Later when he wrote about his experiences at an online forum, users claimed that it might have been possible to do so in Singapore but it was "simply not possible to live in a small Indian town without using cash." Pant decided to take up the challenge and prove naysayers wrong. This was in August long before many had even heard of the term demonetisation.Arpita Chakrabarty | TNN | Updated: November 28, 2016, 09:10 IST

ALMORA: Months before demonetisation forced people across the country to live without cash, a finance technology professional hailing from Kumaon voluntarily decided not to use cash in his daily transactions and has been steadfastly sticking to his resolve. Abhishant Pant, who works in a Mumbai-based company, first went cashless in March this year in Singapore. Later when he wrote about his experiences at an online forum, users claimed that it might have been possible to do so in Singapore but it was "simply not possible to live in a small Indian town without using cash." Pant decided to take up the challenge and prove naysayers wrong. This was in August long before many had even heard of the term demonetisation.

As part of his cashless experiment, Pant spent eight days in the Kumaon hills -- from where he originally hails -- and tried to make his way through daily life without using cash. Talking about his experience, Pant told TOI, “During my eight-day long stay in Kumaon, I visited Manan, Almora, Naukuchiyatal and Nanital. It was a challenge to not pay cash for any services and to convince people to accept digital payments. But I persevered and am happy to say that was able to meet with success almost everywhere.”

As to how he did it, the 36-year-old recalls, “All my hotel bookings were done in advance through a travel website’s app. The car and driver that I hired were paid through a direct bank transfer.”

The biggest challenge, he says, came while making small payments. “Once I stopped for tea at Majhod about 28 km away from Almora. The bill came to Rs 78. The shopowner, Puran, was initially wary of accepting payment digitally. After a bit of convincing, he agreed. I immediately made a transfer of Rs 100 because of his willingness to accept mobile money. I also showed him how he could transfer and accept money through mobile wallets which are telecom-based and do not need internet connectivity.” The net result, recalls Pant with a satisfied smile, was that the elderly chai-walla was left immensely thrilled and enthused with the idea that he could now ask his son working in Rudrapur to directly send him money in his bank account – using banking apps – rather then going to a bank and standing in a queue for doing so.

According to Pant, going cashless in Kumaon was made a bit easier because “Pahadi people are essentially very simple, so it was not difficult to talk about my cashless experiment with them.” But he added that one of the primary difficulties of going cashless in remote and hilly places is lack of internet access. “There was fluctuating net connectivity, although there was mobile phone connectivity in most places. Wherever the net didn’t work, I used telecom-basedservices like Vodafone mPesa or Airtel money to make fund transfers.”

Pant says that his wife Richa, and parents, settled in Haldwani, have been extremely supportive of his initiative. "My family helps me as much as they can. For example, my wife took our domestic help to an ATM and helped her learn how to use the machine. She explained how to navigate the Hindi menu and use the options on the screen after which our help was convinced about accepting her payments digitally.”

Ask him about demonetisation and he hails it as “ a great move.” However, he adds it could have been better planned. “Farmers and those in rural areas are being hit the most due to lack of banks in their neighbourhood while ATMs are still an urban and semi-urban phenomenon,” he says adding that the move can be a game-changer in the long run if it convinces poor people to use mobile phones for payment which would in turn encourage them to open bank accounts and get access to better rates of interest and credit facilities. “The importance of going digital is in the fact that by doing so, one can improve lives. One can have a credit history, get access to faster means to send money home and inculcate the habit of savings.”